Page 76 of The Enduring Universe
Just for an instant, the Etherium receded and her vision cleared. She disengaged from Iravan, approaching the closest yaksha, a gargantuan bear-like creature that slumbered on its front paws, its breath heavy. Faint light was trickling away from it in sparkles, curving around Iravan who still stood on the last step. Further ahead was the tiger-yaksha, so large that it towered over her though it was asleep, its head resting on its forelegs. As with the bear-yaksha, light seeped away from it in sharp glimmers.
There were more too, one gigantic creature after another, each the size of a small mountain. Ahilya saw a massive raven, its wings wrapped around itself as it perched on a rock, then a gargantuanlizard, its tail so long and thick, she had to climb over it like it were a fallen tree trunk. Countless more lurked behind, in shapes too abstract to make sense, creatures she had no names for yet, with humps and tusks and feathers. All had once been simply jungle creatures. How many of these corporeal yakshas existed? How many architects had survived the crash from the skies, those who would come to claim them? Or could it be that these yakshas simply were waiting for their architects to be reborn? If so, time was running out, and there was no guarantee of their unity.
Ahilya made a whole circuit, studying as many creatures as she could, without wandering too far from Iravan’s light. In her archeological mind, she was already making records. She had seen many of these animals before. The bear-yaksha was one of the beings she had tracked, a lifetime ago. How big had it grown? Who did it belong to? Had it been Ecstatically trajecting when she’d tracked it? She couldn’t remember. Giddiness overtook her, and a small laugh escaped her. How differently she viewed these creatures now, from all the misfired hypotheses of before. Shaken, her palms sweaty, Ahilya returned to Iravan’s side. The two of them watched as silver dust motes rose from the slumbering beasts, all of them coalescing around him. The Etherium rushed her, and she inhaled sharply, trying to hold onto the brief clarity she had experienced.
“You were always right,” Iravan said quietly. “The yakshas were hidden in some part of the planet, building in the way that only they could for thousands of years. After I united with the falcon, all of the others left the habitat to come here. I think this area was once another habitat. Maybe the yakshas were the reason this was the most viable place for your new city, the earth here stabilized by them through the ages.”
Now that her eyes had adjusted, Ahilya could tell that the cavern extended for miles beyond the first creatures she’d circuited. Shecould distinguish deep inroads and tunnels, catacombs that one could lose themselves in for the rest of their lives. Light floated in lazy spirals back toward Iravan, circling him.
“You believe they built this?” she asked.
“They are Ecstatics, after all. They can supertraject. They must have done so when the Moment and the Deepness were functioning normally. Perhaps after you and I appropriated our habitat, and took it from them.”
Ahilya’s mind buzzed with possibilities, a dozen questions, one after another. Why had the yakshas built this? Had they known about the planetrage before it occurred? Or was it simply their desire to merge with their architects that had helped them create this? An attempt to help civilization find a new city? She asked none of these questions. These were academic concerns. It was not why she was here.
The light around Iravan grew brighter. It almost seemed as though the bear-yaksha was becoming darker the brighter Iravan became. Silvery particles of light still flowed toward her husband, rising from the shapes of the sleeping yakshas all around her. Was he doing something to them? She had no way to know. She did not understand the everpower. Within the vriksh, Iravan grew stronger, his eyes glowing silver like the man in the cave. It meant something, this merging of the two Iravans, but Ahilya could not focus.
“Incorporeal yakshas too?” she said at last. “Are those here?”
In answer, Iravan simply grew brighter.
Light was pouring into him not just from the yaksha animals but from all over the expansive catacombs. From corners that twinkled, and amorphous-cloud-shaped vapors that blinked before dissipating. A horrified sense of calamity grew in Ahilya.
“What are you doing?” she said, her hand over her mouth. “Iravan. These yakshas…”
He did not reply, but his form in the Etherium shivered. She could see it happening like an architect, both in front of her and in her mind—the image of Iravan surrounded by light, his feather cloak fluttering lightly around his shins as if the movement of light created a wind.
And Ahilya understood.
This was no ordinary radiance that moved around him. This was the power of the yakshas themselves, both corporeal and noncorporeal. It swirled toward him, and with each swirl the yakshas became smaller. It was like watching time reverse, the bear-yaksha shrinking every second, the tiger-yaksha diminishing. All around them, the giant creatures shrank, unable to fight what Iravan was doing to them.
Ahilya turned to him. Her voice came out in a horrified whisper. “Why?” she asked.
The light was so bright on him now that she could barely discern his features.
“I suspected this,” he said softly. “But it never truly registered, though there were so many hints. When Bharavi came to my rescue during the spiralweed attack in Nakshar’s library, the kind of kinship I felt with her yaksha… I felt something similar in a past life with another architect’s tiger-yaksha. I’d hoped such familiarity with the falcon would teach the others to enter the Deepness, but I did not ever have the time to test such a thing.” Iravan shook his head, spilling shafts of silver light. “The yakshas have always had a way of communicating with each other. I had been denying the falcon inside me, but now…” His voice grew softer, barely a whisper. “It speaks to me now. Telling me to take all of these over too, the way I took it. One last time in finality. Taking their desire to strengthen it.”
“Subsummation,” she whispered.
The bear-yaksha uttered a growl. Light burst out of it, enveloping it, and Ahilya cried out, shielding her eyes. She saw the light race toward Iravan, who spread out his arms in welcome. The radiance seeped into him through his very pores. His eyes were almost entirely silver, not just the pupil and irises but the sclera too.
When next Ahilya looked, the bear-yaksha was gone. Nothing left of it, no evidence of its existence, not even the weight of its body on the slightly muddy floor. Who had this creature belonged to? Had its architect felt it disappear? What had Iravan done? This was an immortal creature, one of the most ancient ones of their world, that had lived for thousands of years, and Iravan had destroyed it with a thought.
Ahilya remembered the Ecstatics in Irshar’s infirmary. She had thought that they’d been damaged because of her control of them, but they had stopped trajecting because of Iravan. Because he was taking their power into himself by subsuming their counterparts. Ahilya’s shaking hands went to the sungineering device in her ear. She tapped at it, comforted to still hear Dhruv’s slight breathing, listening to this conversation. Perhaps wondering what she was seeing.
“Dhruv,” she whispered. “The Ecstatics—”
“Yes—” His soft, panicked voice reverberated in her earpiece. “Something happening—screaming—Pranav fainted—” The words cut out, back into static.
Iravan stared at her, his eyes utterly silver. Perhaps she imagined it, but for a second it appeared that silver wings of light sprouted out of his shoulders. The effect was magnificent, and terrifying. Ahilya couldn’t hold his gaze.
“You’re killing them,” she whispered.
“I am freeing them,” Iravan replied, as tiny teardrops formed in the corners of his eyes like the smallest jewels. “If I hadn’t stoppedDarsh, he would have killed the others in the Garden. I am taking away the danger of such a thing.”
“You don’t know that, Iravan! I saw what happened to the Ecstatics—this is like excision to them—”
“It is completion,” he snapped. “The yakshas allowed the architects to traject—it is this connection with their creatures that gave them their power. Alone, without the presence of their other half in the world, neither architects nor yakshas will be able to traject. By subsuming them, I am giving the architects hope of becoming complete beings. And if it harms them…” His voice grew icy. “They are architects, protectors of humanity. They will thank me for my service in keeping humanity safe from themselves.”
